Tag Archives: recycling

These signs are so good, I’m going to submit the photograph to Passive-Aggressive Notes. For the sake of full disclosure, these are not my signs. If you are in Swarthmore drinking whiskey, check them out in person. Contact me if you need directions.

Even though water bottles are often made of #1 plastic, quite a bit of oil is used (or burned) to make, decorate, fill, transport, chill, and recycle them. (Energy details here, if you’re interested.) And most people don’t recycle them. If you are a fan of sustainability and a less-polluted world, you should stop using them except in emergencies (e.g., if you have a few cases in the basement for end days, that’s great).

But everyone loves water bottles. Some people use half-dozen per day. So how to get people to question their addiction? As a fun diversion, I designed the sticker at right. The idea is to discreetly put them up at schools, workplaces, and stores, with the hope of slowly nudging people into ending their addictions to disposable plastic water bottles.

3. Attach onto water bottles at stores, or on shelving. Attach on counters at coffee shops. Etc…anywhere near where plastic water bottles are sold or handed out for free. And don’t get caught…bottled water is an $8 billion dollar a year business, so people who make money on this are rather fond of the scam.

4. If you have situated a sticker in a place that you think is just great, take a photograph and Tweet with the #plasticisoil tag. Or post a photograph and link back here. Or post a comment below with URL to photograph.

The above is probably futile, and potentially just a waste of sticker paper, ink, and associated printer and computer, but it seems that disposable water bottles are becoming more and more a ritual in peoples lives, and a little sticker shock might help alert a few people to how monumentally idiotic and wasteful they are. If you’d like to be better informed on the issue, please check out Inside the Bottle and Ban the Bottle.

Some colleges and universities have stopped selling/serving water bottles (article), and some stores have done the same (e.g., Mom’s doesn’t sell plastic water bottles anymore). But institutions and stores won’t just volunteer to do this … they need to be nudged, and agitation via stickers or other ploy will be needed to get people’s attention (I think).

The companion photo to my previous post. My favorite among them is the insulated Thermos behind the model’s right leg. Ice cubes stay solid for over 24 hours. Coffee stays lawsuit-hot for the entire morning. Don’t try that with a water bottle. My daughter steals it, so sometimes I hide it from her.

If you read this post for 60 seconds, that’s how long it will take Americans to use 90,000 water bottles…that’s 1,500 every second, folks (source). A shameful statistic, for sure, and many people have decided to stop using them except for that stash in the basement set aside for the Apocalypse. But individuals need to do more than just model conscientious, “green” lifestyles, they need to somehow shock or influence others — lots of others — into following their lead. Because I have a blog and a camera (and a model!), I thought I’d make some lame attempts. Here is the first contribution, a photograph that might be useful for others writing about kicking our collective water bottle habit. More to come.